Mehbooba Mufti, who is seen as the successor of her father, the late Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, said she needs to be convinced that her party's alliance with the BJP in the state would help resolve Kashmir's issues, reports The Indian Express. The People's Democratic Party (PDP) chief said this at a four-hour-long party meeting held at her residence on Sunday. J&K has been under President's Rule since 8 January, after Mufti Mohammed Sayeed passed away and Mehbooba Mufti has kept silent about taking over as chief minister and forming a government in the state. During the meeting, Mehbooba said that the "purpose of that (alliance) was not limited to government formation, but it was to take Jammu and Kashmir out of the trouble that it has faced for most part of its history".

More than 12 Dalit students at the Raajdhani Engineering College in Bhubaneswar have threatened to commit suicide if the SC/ST welfare department of the Bihar government does not pay their scholarship money, reports The Telegraph. The students, all from East Champaran in Bihar, had been asked to leave the college over non-payment of fees. The fees are supposed to be paid by the Bihar SC/ST welfare department. They have now written to the East Champaran district administration threatening suicide if the scholarship money is not forthcoming.

A government report released last month showed that in the educational year 2014-15, only seven out of every 100 hundred teachers in colleges and universities across the country were from the Scheduled Castes, while teachers from the Scheduled Tribes comprised only two per cent, reports The Telegraph. According to the All India Survey on Higher Education Provisional Report for 2014-15, only 1.02 lakh (7.22 per cent) of the 14.1 lakh teachers in 716 universities and 38,056 colleges in the country are Dalits, while teachers from scheduled tribes comprise 30,000 or 2.12 per cent. These figures don't reflect even the national population of Dalits (16.6 per cent) and tribal communities (8.6 per cent).

Work at the University of Hyderabad, which has been disrupted by protests after the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula on 17 January, will resume from today, reports The Indian Express. According to acting vice chancellor M Periasamy, a discussion with the Students' Joint Action Committee (JAC) on Sunday led to an agreement to resume classes from Monday, even though protests will continue. There are some conditions to be met, however. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes teachers in the institution who had joined the protests, will also return to work with conditions attached, said Periasamy.

Members of the Kapu community in Tuni, Andhra Pradesh, on Sunday set a train, a police station and several police stations on fire while demanding reservations under the Backward Class (BC) category, reports The Indian Express. The community, which comprises 23.4 per cent of the state's coastal population, was classified as BC till 1960, but declassified after that, and have been agitating for reservations ever since. Sunday's demonstration blocked the Chennai-Kolkata National Highway and the railway tracks at Tuni station. When the Ratnachal Express arrived, the protesters attacked it and set fire to four coaches that destroyed the entire train. The community said it would agitate indefinitely unless the government released a Government Order by Monday evening.

Amid the tussle between the BJP and the PDP on continuing the coalition in Jammu and Kashmir, the core group of state BJP met in Jammu on Monday to discuss the political situation in the state. The meeting comes a day after PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti asserted that her party would have to reassess whether it can continue its alliance with the BJP to form a government in the state.The BJP too, is playing hardball as it has reportedly renewed its demand of rotational chief ministership for the state. The meeting - held in Gandhi Nagar - saw participation of core group members, including former Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh, former ministers, MPs and the BJP Jammu and Kashmir unit president, Satpal Sharma.

The Delhi Commission for Women has taken suo moto cognisance of a video showing police brutality against female students who were protesting outside RSS office in Jhandewalan on Saturday. The video shows a policeman beating female students and dragging one student by her hair.

The notice sent to the Joint Commissioner of Delhi Police questions why was police action taken the students, who were protesting peacefully and why was no police woman stationed at the protest site. DCW chief Swati Maliwal has sought a detailed status report on the police action on 30 January within 72 hours.